The present invention relates generally to a safety belt buckle, and more particularly to a safety buckle for use in an automobile.
An automobile safety belt buckle provides a readily releasable mechanism for holding belt ends together to restrain an occupant of a motor vehicle during a collision. Various considerations affect the design and manufacture of safety belt buckles.
Because safety belt buckles are generally produced in volume, it is desirable that a buckle be capable of mass production at relatively low cost. To make safety belt buckles convenient and simple to use, it is desirable that the buckle be capable of being latched and unlatched without requiring a great deal of force or manual effort. To this end, many safety belt buckles employ an automatic latch mechanism which locks a tongue plate within the interior of the buckle upon insertion, and a push button for unlocking the buckle.
With the increased popularity of sub-compact cars in recent years, it has been found that due to the smaller size of the cars and their lighter weight, the impact forces on occupants may be increased during collision. Because of this, a seat belt buckle for a sub-compact car may be required to withstand greater tensile forces than a seat belt buckle for a larger car.
In addition to the ability to withstand relatively high tensile forces without failing, various other governmental or industry standards must be met. For example, the seat belt buckle should be releasable with a reasonable force applied to the push button even if a person is hanging upside down in the seat belt and portions of the tongue plate are forced against portions of the latch mechanism by relatively high belt tension. It is also desirable that the buckle provide a clear indication to the user when the tongue or tip is inserted fully to avoid a false latching condition.
Accordingly, it is a general object of the present invention to provide a new and improved, as constrasted with the prior art, safety belt buckle.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide an improved safety belt buckle which may be mass produced at a commercially competitive cost.
Further objects and features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description and the accompanying drawings.